Ecto Sludge
by PlathRamsey
Summary: When Jack Fenton comes up dead Maddie and Danny confront Vlad Masters for answers. Vlad reveals to Maddie the fate that gave him his Plasmius powers. The fate that gave Danny his Phantom powers. Had an erroneous Maddie been fighting her fate too? Danny, Vlad, Maddie. (Also college flashback scene that includes Jack) VladxMaddie pairing!
1. Chapter 1

Our lives our forever linked by tragedy.

We knew only one of us would come out truly alive... and truly loved.

 _Jack Fenton is dead._

You must understand that this is a day I never really imagined would happen.

You must understand what this means...

 _Maddie..._

Life has not been easy for this half-ghost supervillain, let me tell you. I have years of occult training under my belt, and a skill set to match that belt with shiny sequins... but nothing can shine like the glow of Maddie's eyes... though often times my glances at her were while she glanced, doe-eyed and stupidly at Jack.

However... in my newfound understanding, I almost sympathize with my rival, and know that our intentions were more similar in heart than in their eventual actions. We were two primal beasts beating our chests for the affections of a girl... but not just any girl. Maddie... the girl he stole from me!

Maddie... let me teach you to fly. Let me show you a better world - a world without Jack Fenton - a world without Ecno-acne or the obnoxious fundraisers on the TV to cure it (we only raised $200 - mainly because no one knew what the hell we were talking about-) a world where you and I are finally King and Queen..

 _The doorbell rings..._

"Maddie!" my voice confidently addresses, forgetting social cues. "You look so lovely... given such terrible circumstances."

Her eyes tear through me like ghost-obliterating lasers, and her face is pale and puzzled.

"Vlad..."

The moment is stolen by a snot-nosed little shit named Danny. His stare instantly becomes a threat of violence alone. There is a tension between us all that festers like an ever-expanding elephant in the rooms of my castle. I have to tell the truth, instantly. 

"I didn't kill your father, Daniel. But please, come in! - And Maddie, I will have your coat lined up on the finest of coathangers, and-" 

"Vlad-" she intercepts like Brett Farve to score a touchdown in my heart. "I-" 

"You must be so tired!" I desperately try to persuade her into security of my smile. "Have you ever felt the material of a six hundred thousand dollar expandable bed on your legs before? It's... really quite divine." 

"It sounds lovely, Vlad," Maddie admits, delighting me, but likewise she toys with my heart with her every word. "But I really don't know if it's appropriate to be meeting like this so soon.." 

"Oh, Maddie," I say, my voice cracking in genuine concern, "Even as a grieving widow, your eyes are still no more nor less haunting than before." 

"Cut the shit, Vlad!" her misfit child barks at me. "I know you had something to do with this!" 

"Oh, hush, boy," I say, undeterred. "As I've been telling your mother for... exactly three hours and twenty eight minutes straight of text messages and Skype calls - I'm here to help." 

"I... want to believe that, Vlad" Maddie whimpers. Such delicate pain - pain I know all too well, somehow, in longing for her. I have something for her tonight that will change everything we have ever known... my last chance at winning her heart. "Please come in." 

The evening dinner goes smoothly enough, with the obvious passive aggression between me and the boy. Maddie even eats like an angel. I hope she doesn't mind me staring, in between the usual condolences and small talk about our favorite wines and cheeses. It's a touchy subject - the Jack thing, as you can imagine, and she is in a state of grief. I am doing my best to prepare her for this truth that Jack never saw coming.

(Frankly, neither did I!)

What I had not ever truly known in all these years was there was a ghost among the presence of my castle that was not only strong enough to merely kill Jack or Danny - but one that might resolve the pieces of my heart to repair - repair in Maddie's arms at last!

It was a freak accident that changed my life, but as such, I was not Jack's only mistake in the world of ghostly mischief. Allow me to ellaborate. A chance encounter with another immortal showed me what I really became on the day that ripped me away from her, and drove her into Fenton's arms. A keeper of time and potential fate, Clockwork, had mumbled to me about ghosts not always being what we think of them to be. Sometimes feelings can be ghosts, too.

(Then he tried to kill me; go figure.) 

" _Daniel_ , could you excuse me and your mother for a moment?"

"No way, dude! I am NOT leaving you alone with my mom after what you-"

"Danny, please!" Maddie's voice interrupts us, heavenly and reserved as she is stern, and so the true conversation can begin. Danny slips out of the room, watching me in his every step as he goes to what I hope is the last possible bathroom on the furthest end of the castle. 

Minutes tick by, and the conversations do rightfully shift to talk of Jack and Danny, and the wheels of fate that turn for us all now. 

"I know your secret, Vlad," Maddie declares. "I know about your life as Plasmius, your countless attempts on Jack's life - what you've done on your expensive beds - everything!" 

I gasp. "Maddie! How could you accuse me of such awful and atrocious things? Surely you would not have come all the way out here just to toss around such hurtful accusations!" 

"Danny always told me I shouldn't trust you, Vlad..." 

"Danny is a fool, Maddie. He has grown up being overshadowed by that big, lumbering wall of a husband of yours. Both of you have been restraining your true potential - potential that I can-" 

"Enough!" she interrupts, glaring at me with hellish eyes that I know are serious... but something behind the fire beckons me still. 

"How did you find out?" I prod. 

She looks into my eyes and begins our psychological game of musical chairs. Both of us are refusing to stand, now, deadlocked into cemented stance, waiting for each other's move. 

"I have my ways, Vlad. I have been onto your true motives for quite some time." 

"My 'true motives?'" I question. "Why did you come out here if you think I killed him?" 

Maddie says nothing, her lips devoid of a twitch, and her eyes too vigilant to fall off of me with more than a blink. 

"Do you also know about Danny's powers?" 

She nods. 

This is all going so much better than I had anticipated... 

The music has long since died. 

"Are you and Danny going to try to kill me?" I ask, smirking. "If you're going to take advice from him, you should ask him how many times I've died. It's honestly not many, Maddie... and never for as long as Jack." 

Maddie hesitates for a moment, a bit of blood rushing to her head as she lets the wine settle in her stomach. 

"I need to know what happened to him. I know that you know... Vlad Plasmius." 

Hearing her call me by that name sends a quiver down my spine with the force of ten thousand Fenton-patented spiritual spine beams. I try to maintain my composure, and discipline. 

"If you knew what I knew," I respond, "you'd know I didn't kill him. Jack killed himself... in a way." 

"How dare you!" she screeches. "Are you saying that-" 

"Maddie - what I'm saying is, we are on the cusp of something that no one could have truly understood before." 

"What are you talking about?" Maddie demands. 

"- What killed Jack - what gave me and Danny our powers - what compelled you here, if not to avenge him - it's all part of the same thing, Maddie. We are all summoning a great supernatural energy - here, and now. You and I are the rightful owners of this energy - not you and Jack!" 

A part of the truth leaks from my lips like cosmic sludge. I wipe my mouth and wait for her to catch an interest in my information. It's a very curious game. 

"You're... not making any sense... " she mumbles. "At least... not much sense. A little, I think." 

"Yes," I confirm. "You know it in your heart, don't you? - On the day of the accident, a terrible crime was committed against fate... a crime that robbed me of my humanity - and of you! Yet, one was many in a list of crimes that begin and end with the Fenton name! I should be the one taking care of you - the one honing your crafts with my own. Jack ensured that all I would ever have was a bucket full of extra crispy for a head!" 

"And there you go on again," she shoots down, "always the same stories, always the same people to blame. Have you ever EVEN ONCE considered that I chose Jack over you because I genuinely loved him, and NOT because your face was fried chicken?" 

"Yes, Maddie," I concede. "I have considered all possible fates since that day, and all foods in which to compare my face to - hopelessly wandering through space and time to reconcile this matter - why I feel so alone without you. Why the ghosts around us all are conspiring in such anger; why you ended up with such a ... a buffoon! They say opposites attract, but my-" 

"Stop talking about him like that!" she warns. "How can you say such things about my husband - your former friend - if you were not the one who killed him! He loved me - and he loved you! You were like a brother to him!" 

"HA!" I deflect. "That oafish fence post couldn't calibrate a calculator! He never truly cared about my talents - or yours! It was always US, Maddie - the brains of the team - the true Masters of the unseen! Jacky-boy was just along for the ride!" 

"You're insane," Maddie spits. 

"I know," I acknowledge, sipping the wine and building a rather impressive statue to myself out of toothpicks on my dinner plate as we talk (one of my many hidden talents). "You always said that the 'mad scientist' thing was a turn on, didn't you?" I smile. 

"Vlad..." Maddie blushes, "That ... was years ago." 

"Eternities," I correct. "Each of them spent in my own personal hell without you." 

"Me...?" 

"You, Maddie..." I call out, declaring my undying devotion. "For all of these days and nights and years and crimes - it has always been the pain of really losing you that has driven me to these low frequencies..." 

Maddie looks to the ground, for a second, slightly lost and assessing her thoughts. 

"We did have some good times together, didn't we...?" 

An unexpected wall has come down in her temperament. I catch her lost in reflections of a life that should have continued on with us together - days and nights of lab partners and friends and potentially so much more - Vlad... and Maddie. Unfortunately, connecting the dots reveals that our love story has always been, indeed, a tragedy. 

... Until tonight? 


	2. Chapter 2

"Remember when I won those tickets for that Packers game, for the stadium near our old lab?" 

Finally - a smile comes to the sweet widow's lips and she almost trips into a slight chuckle. 

"Of course!" she beams. "That was crazy!" 

"Yes," I agree - "more than you know, for more reasons than you understand." 

Maddie shakes her head. 

"'You're looking sharp!'" she quotes herself from the day in question, giggling in slight self-deprecation. "I was such a dork back then!" 

"No... you weren't," I reassure her. "You were beautiful then, and you're beautiful now. 

"Vlad..." Maddie blushes. She tries to steer my mind towards the events of that fateful day. "You were so excited! You ran to tell me, as I was-" 

"You were wearing your labcoat," I begin to effortlessly recall, finishing her thought, "hiding a blue halter top, a studded belt, and a purple skirt with flowing fabric, like ribbons. You were working on an experiment..." 

"The Spectral Emotional Ecto Sludge," she correctly remembers. "I forgot all about that nasty, brown goop. It was so ugly... so sticky and slimy, so-" 

"So like HIM!" I shout at her, startling even myself, a bit. Maddie is taken off her guard by my conviction, but that is okay. 

I have my reasons for making an enemy of the Sludge I met on that day, and they are the same as my vendetta against her late, great Jack: it cost me yet another chance with her!" 

\- "Hey Vlad! You're looking sharp!" Maddie called from afar, deep within a memory forcing its way through my powerful brain. "Whatcha' so excited for?" 

My eyes soon caught the aforementioned ribbon-like fabric of her unforgettable purple skirt. It flew through the air like angel wings. Those eyes very quickly went to hers, though, as I tried not to stare. 

(I may be a villain, but I'm not a creeper.) 

Mainly I remember this occurrence because it felt like a gust of wind had taken up toward me as I entered the lab through the creaky door, tickets outstretched in excitement with my flailing hands trying to reach for Maddie. It was as if I was having a premonition before I actually had the ability to have them (a prepremonition). 

I was so happy. This was finally my chance to win her over - to ask her out on a date to one of the biggest games in history! 

(Okay, it actually wasn't an important game, but free tickets are free tickets, and boy, did I need an excuse to work up the nerve.) 

"Maddie!" I gleefully called out as a mere mortal man. Up until a certain point, I'd consider these the simpler days. "I have some amazing news!" 

"I can tell!" she boasted with a surprised smile. "Your emotions are radiating throughout the Sludge - which, of course, means the experiment was a resounding success!" 

Delighted with her own information first, she beamed. 

"What is that?" I asked, puzzled and broken away, too, from my own cause of success. 

Like a supermodel posing with a product, her hand held a meager tupperware container among the land of test tubes. In it was a sight that scars my eyes to this day. 

"Well!" Maddie grinned, seemingly waiting for hours just to be asked - "This little baby is the magical - the fantastical - the - Spectral Emotional Ecto Sludge!" 

I tilted my head slightly to the left, thinking to myself how deeply I was falling in love with her every graceful gesture. I had to keep these feelings to myself, so I resigned to looking rightfully puzzled by her experiment. 

"Spectral... Emotional ... Sludge?" 

"Sort of!" she laughed, and true to its name, there was an emotional reaction to match her own within the brown, toxic slime. It danced to the sound of her voice, highly reactive. 

"What does it do?" I pondered to her, intrigued. 

"Well," - and Maddie hesitated with a flush upon her face that made my heart skip, here - "I'm not exactly sure?" 

Both Maddie and the slime coyly shrugged. 

"It's supposed to read the emotions of the people it comes into contact with," she continued, "and what I was hoping for was that it could help communicate emotional resonance in the supernatural realms, too... but..." 

"But it's dancing." I smiled. "Maddie, you're a genius!" 

She took a quick bow, drinking in my admiration, before finally acknowledging what I was holding. 

"What are those?" she asked, the slime still hypnotically clinging to her voice in a dance. 

"Well!" - and I tried to use the same inflection as her, to make her laugh (and it worked; yes!). "Do you remember the call-in show from a week ago?"

"Yeah-?"

\- "MADDIE!" -

\- Just then, a second gust of wind generated - a huge one - the wind generated by a man wearing tights one-fourths his size, and incredible amount of hot air coming from his own bullshit. Imagine a gorrilla had mated with an ostrich at a superhero convention, and that would only cover his mother's genes - but I digress. The oafish, walking fencepost returned.

"Jack!"

And as if compelled by the hands of fate, as Maddie's voice rang out in confusion of the three of us all in a state of excitement at once, the slime hopped up from its container, hurling itself in the air like a sentient pile of flying vomit.

(About that premonition...)

"OH NO!" screamed Maddie.

"NO!" Jack screamed like a mentally stunted chimpanzee. "Maddie! Vlad is projectile vomiting - QUICK! - FIND SOMETHING ABSORBENT BEFORE IT STAINS THE LAB!"

"WHAT?!" I tried to scream out in confusion, but it was too late. Like an obliviously charging rhino, Jack began hurling towards me. "JACK, NO!"

"Jack!" Maddie cried out in sincere panic - "It's - NO! - IT'S - "

The tickets were ripped from my hand before I could say anything else, and I went hurling in the other direction of Jack, and the "puke" for about five feet, before landing on the ground, horrified.

"PAPER SHOULD DO THE JOB! WAY TO ALWAYS BE RESOURCEFUL, VLADDIE! - EVEN WHEN YOU'RE SICK!"

The sentient Ecto Sludge ate the tickets in the air in an instant, controlled by the will of its stupid and unrightful wielder. It then grew exponentially in size until it covered the walls of the lab... but in an instant, it was gone. In one twist of fate to add to the list of all the ways Jack had robbed me of Maddie - even in freak accidents no one could have foreseen - another notch was added in the belt.

As I told you before, I have begun to better understand Jack in wake of his passing. This day, though I had no true way of knowing, up until tonight, sealed his fate.

But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

The food is eaten. The drinks are drank.

\- "You didn't tell us that those were tickets for weeks!" Maddie recalls, laughing with a snort and reflecting back much differently than me on the memory. " - Even up until the day of the game, you just kept sulking and sulking! You didn't even show up for the next couple-"

"- It's his fault!" I scream, rageful. "It's always been! That should have been OUR game!"

"Vlad..."

"Maddie - you don't understand," I plead. "Can you not see that I've waited lifetimes just for a moment like this alone with you again?

"Alone... with me?"

"You're laughing again, Maddie," I remark. "Do you know how long I've waited to hear you laugh or smile and think of me?"

"You..."

Finally, I begin to read a shred sympathy in the voice of my beloved - one that she has denied for so long, just like Jack has. She has such an innocent coyness to her... behind the makeup, behind the tears. She has spent all of this time untamed. Her powers could have even rivaled mine, in terms of sheer intellect. But like the dulling of a blade, her thoughts and memories and dreams fade away into memories of Jack.

"You talk about him like he was just something in your way," she moans, saddened.

I want to blurt out, "he was" - to sink back into sheer hatred and revenge - but the game has changed, and I want to return her lowered guard with genuine affection. Both of us are grieving in very different ways.

"Maddie," I concede, "Perhaps I was misguided in seeking revenge in the ways I have before. Perhaps, if you were happy with him, I can be happy for you. The main thing that I wanted you to see tonight is that you would have been - and could still be - much happier with me."

"Vlad..." she sinks, almost recoiling into her seat. "Why have you always been so... interested in me? With all your power and money, you could have anyone in the world - or ANY world. Why ME?"

"You..." and my voice and heart both skip in tune.

"Think about it," she suggests, like the hushing of the words that I cannot yet follow with. "Get back to me... after you tell me how you killed my husband."

"I - I ... didn't kill him," I assure her - and to me, this is still the truth.

"Can you prove that to me tonight?" she sternly asks in the tone of an almost threat or warning.

"If I can..." I begin to bargain " ... will you stay with me tonight?"

"Vlad... I... " - she turns her head and fades in and out of racing thoughts and priorities, confused about her true feelings. I anticipated this moment. I have been waiting restless eternities - as I've rambled on about.

"Think about it," I smirk.

Maddie is not impressed... just still very lost.

My hands wish to touch her cheek.

My long, expensive overcoats long to keep her body warm.

"I love him, Vlad, living or dead, killed by you or ten thousand grisly ghosts - I love Jack."

"But you love me, too... don't you, Maddie?"

"I..."

"Isn't that why you came here, Maddie...? Do you not remember the good times with me - times where Jack would never cease to screw up, and yet you never stopped forgiving him? Why? Why, Maddie?"

She cannot reply, her breath and eyes stolen by an oncoming emotion. Her breath smells of Merlot, and her words are from the heart.

"It wasn't ... exactly a grisly," I begin, drawing her to stay on her guard. She takes the bait, and gives me an angered look.

"What was it, Vlad? What happened? What do you know?"

"Maddie," I begin to unravel a bit, again, with the truth. "All I have ever wanted to know in life was your love... not a world of grisly ghosts."

" What kind of ghost have you been hiding from me, Vlad?"

My brow lowers. My body stiffens. One more drink of wine... is drank.

"I know of a ghost more powerful and brutal than those you and your family have struggled to understand," I begin, - "one that feeds on anger, hate, and pain... and of that pain, I know a pit so deep and eternal that it could never contain said ghost. It longs forever, wishing to belong to something - to attach to someone - and it waits, and festers and and goes insane... like me. With that pain and insanity, festering under the surface of my power and your marriage, we have likewise birthed a rival to Jack much like me, as well."

"This is pointless." Maddie retorts, catching me off my guard. "You're still just rattling off nonsense. Do you still think you are the only one who is in pain, Vlad? Do you have any idea how you and your powers have hurt other people? If there is such a ghost - such a creature - such a MONSTER - how is it not you, yourself - your ego, your plans - YOUR cause?"

Now it is my turn to hesitate.

"There are far worse monsters than simply me, Maddie," I begin to my love, still overtaken with the weight of all my devious decisions visa vis her attempted guilt trip. "Likewise, there are many causes to fight for - 'the Ecno Acne Supercure Fundraising Agogo-plex,' for one - but I digress. With absolute power, corruption is absolutely essential, is it not? With all of this power, the temptation to rule the galaxy would be strong for anyone - even your son - and even you, Maddie."

"I'm not like you, Vlad," she dismisses. "I don't desire power. I want to make the world a better place - for me - for Danny, for everyone-"

"Young Danny has yet to fully grow into his powers," I remind her " - to realize the potential laid out before us, as demigods. I only wish now to guide him to understand the worlds beyond our own, and yet still - you - and he deny me - empowering a father that has no clue how to handle him, this power, or ... you."

"Yeah?" Maddie shrugs, seeming to tire of the conversation reaching a vague stalemate. "Well, it's too late for that, now," she laments. "Jack's dead... and you're going to tell me what happened to him, and... where's Danny?!"

Oh, great. Now even Jack Fenton's sperm has to interfere with my life in his absence.

"I'm sure he's fine - probably 'going ghost' or something uninteresting such as -"

A large amount of thudding and banging interrupts me - followed by a voice I wish would dissipate into the brick walls. 

"MOM! GET OUT! GET OUT OF HERE! IT'S A-"

"DANNY!"


	3. Chapter 3

_"MOM! GET OUT OF HERE!"_

* * *

Maddie topples the wine glass off of the table, and begins to take out of the castle room before I can even stand up. More loud noises echo out of our reach. Something is causing a great havoc all of a sudden... and I know exactly what it is.

Damn it. I was expecting showtime to not be so early...

The thudding and banging continue as I chase after her, calling her name in genuine concern, because I know what she is racing towards. She, of course, ignores my pleas, as any mother would, and tries to find her son (whom I assume is righteously getting his ass kicked, as he so often tends to do in my castle).

I knew it was only a matter of time before the boy discovered what truly killed his father. I figured I'd see if I could get a two-for-one kind of deal before I moved in for Maddie. I suppose it's too late now... but no matter.

Let the show begin.

As I chase after her, I remember how long I've been chasing... how long I've been longing. More flashbacks ceaselessly pound against my mind like ping pong, remembering the older days between Maddie and I. I wonder as I follow her racing footsteps if my own seemingly endless corridor is a metaphor of some kind. I've been chasing her for so long, always being pulled away, always being hurled up into the big, stupid arms of the hero. Tonight, she will know her hero isn't dead.

He's me.

I feel like my mind is a straight, thin line, like every hallway... an arrow to Maddie's heart.

As she finally opens the door, she gasps loudly enough to count as an explosion. She sees her boy knocked unconscious on the floor, bruised and beaten, as I had anticipated. He is buried underneath dust and rubble, but so far, there is no sign of his attacker. She rushes to his side, and from her position to check his status, she gives me a scowl.

"You!" she screams. "I knew I couldn't trust you! What have you done?!"

"Maddie-" I plead, now realizing that our former game of musical chairs has ended, and both of us are scrambling to find a proper seat in the room, before we get taken out. "This is actually the one time when you NEED to trust me - or your son, and you, and I - will -"

Just then, a terribly familiar brown, sluggish goop begins to form all over the walls...

Maddie's expression has turned to shock and panic to horror, and something familiar. It's almost as if the memory has summoned an old foe to the scene, and it reacts with matched hysterics. The walls begin to crumble and tear apart, sinking into the readings of everyone's panic. It's a vicious cycle, as the more Maddie and I become unhinged, so too, does the world around us... literally. The Sludge is rageful... wrathful. It will not stop until the paradox of our emotions is resolved.

What Clockwork had revealed to me, after I bested him in battle, was that the Spectral Emotional Ecto Sludge, was in itself, now like a ghost. It had been feeding on all of our collective misery since that day... at least, mine. The tickets were not made of a very absorbant material, to say the least... but when I held them with the intention of winning Maddie over, that intention resonated. Eating the tickets fed the Sludge knowledge of our curious triangle. It had been festering for far too long.

It wanted Fenton.

Perhaps the whole time, fate was trying to rectify what I never could.

Needless to say, I had been attempting to track it down for quite some time since learning of its intention... but it had always eluded me... just like Maddie... until tonight - also just like Maddie - it showed up at my door... exactly one hour before she did.

But now, Maddie has finally returned to see the weight of her own grief and mine combined and threatening to kill us both. Now, she is in danger.

I have to show my true form; no need to hide it from her anymore.

("Going Ghost!" is still such a stupid catch phrase, by the way.)

Once transformed again into my Plasmius ways, I try my best to shield her from the oncoming debris, generated by the Sludge. My powers shine in kinetic lightning, phasering rocks and expensive items from other rooms that the monster is summoning with its rampage to fly at us. I shoot many a blast at every slimy, oozing piece of matter I see... but it seems completely unaffected.

"VLAD!" she screams, "GET US OUT OF HERE!"

"I can't!" I shout back, trying to talk over the rumbling bricks and pillars.

"What the hell do you mean you CAN'T?!"

A few more useless blasts at the Sludge dishearten me. I have to admit something to Maddie that normally a man of my status would not let his pride allow... but again, it is the truth.

"Even with all my power," I concede, "I know of no way to stop this thing!"

Maddie is cradling Danny, holed up in storage of the room's corner now that seems shadowed away from the Sludge. I can see in her eyes that even amidst the panic, her mind is racing to assess new information. The look she gives me almost continues our conversation in the other room without us having to.

"The... Sludge...!" Maddie calls. "The Sludge killed Jack?!"

The room stabilizes now slightly as if our goopy enemy wants to answer. My hands tire from wielding my powers.

"Do you remember?" I ask her in the becoming calm of the Sludge's storm. "Do you remember how you felt on that day you say me, before the accident - before the madness?"

"What?" - Again, Maddie is confused.

"I was 'looking sharp' - remember?"

"Vlad - what -"

"Maddie! You - me, Jack - we've all been feeding this thing for years. All of the battles - all of the madness - all of the scorn and jealousy and all of your research - it can wield it all against us! This is more powerful than all of us combined... and we can't all combine anymore!"

"It's..."

\- "It's just you and me now, Maddie..." I finish for her.

"Vlad... what have we done...?"

Maddie's resignation to her fear, like the starting of an engine, roars again the Sludge to rear its ugly head, in its true form, this time, as well. A goop that pours from the walls piles into the corner adjacent to Maddie and Danny. It begins to grow bigger, and bigger. Ominously, it assembles itself like a creature looking far too big for a human, and far too... solid, for a ghost or goop. It's changing its properties fast, drinking in Maddie's fear and my yearning. The Sludge has grown up into a villainous, vile dasdardly, worthy of my army...

But I would never command anything to hurt Maddie! - (the boy - sure - and often - but -)

"VLAD!"

Remembering that day I first encountered the sludge, I reach into my pocket for my only real idea as to how to combat this predicament. In my suit pocket, now slightly stained with wine, is a long, yellow envelope.

"What... what is that?" Maddie trembles as the monster moves towards her.

"Well!" I gleefully say, recalling our old life, "it's an 'ace in the hole' - a secret weapon I've been saving to wield for a few days, wrestling with this decision. Every tragic love story needs a sacrifice - right, Maddie?"

"What are you TALKING about?!" she screeches. "Are you going to... mail a letter while this thing kills me?!"

I grimace. Carefully, my powerful hand opens the envelope, and pulls out an obnoxiously long piece of paper.

"Maddie," I decree, while savoring the mere seconds before the monster finds her. "They finally sold me the team."

"... What?!"

"- The Packers, Maddie - they made me an offer. All I have to do is sign it and-"

"VLAD!" Maddie screams, now visibly in tears, "HOW CAN YOU BE SO SELFISH RIGHT NOW?! DO YOU WANT ME TO-"

"I WANT YOU TO SEE THIS!" I scream.

"See WHAT!?"

With time running out, I make my move.

"None of this, Maddie - NONE OF THIS means anything to me anymore - not the Packers, not this world or the world unseen - absolutely NOTHING - if I do not have you. Why you? - Why YOU? - I'll tell you why - because you make me want to be GOOD, Maddie. These ghosts have been restless for so long - all because of our tragic romance. You know in your heart that I could have given you more than he ever could, and YOU KNOW IT, TOO - YOU UGLY, BIG PILE OF SHIT!"

Without a single flinch of hesitation, I fling the unsigned contract into the monster.

It sinks like a fish into Jello into its back. The sacrifice has been made.

Maddie screams.

Silence holds for a few seconds now in her echo.

The monster stands still.

The monster roars.

"SHIT!"

My mind is racing for a way to kill this thing. If none of the Fentons could do it, it's up to me.

Wait...

None of the Fentons...

"Maddie!"

As the room is engulfed in an ominous gold glow, and the Sludge creature inches towards Maddie, who is too tired to try and fight, time almost stops as it did in all of my terrible encounters with Jack that changed my life. Now it all is starting to make sense.

Maddie hangs her head down, accepting her fate, and Danny's.

"Goodbye, Vlad... I..."

"You..."

The final puzzle piece of the Sludge mystery fits, and as it raises a hand that has hardened from goo to solid stone to crush the love of my life, I cry out to her.

"SAY YOU LOVE ME, MADDIE!"

"What-?"

"SAY YOU LOVE ME!"

"But I -"

"Jack always knew it, Maddie - he knew that we had something that he could never have with you - never did. He was his own worst enemy. It was only a matter of time before his own mistakes caught up with him... but you... you're so brilliant, Maddie - so wonderful and truly good! You don't deserve this! He wouldn't have wanted things to end this way! And it can only end this way if you refuse to see what you and I have been running from for YEARS-"

\- "VLAD! I LOVE YOU!" -

What...?

Hell freezes over.

The monster crumbles into dust.

As the castle starts to further rip itself apart in resolution of the monster's feelings (and ours) I use all of my strength to create a shield around me and Maddie (and begrudgingly, the boy as well). In flashes of light so bright that death itself would lose focus, I nearly pass out from the toll of the ecto-shield.

(Thanks for helping, Danny. Little shit.)

I swear I must be dead. I swear I must be.

Is this Heaven?

Maddie is resting in my arms now as her son had been resting in hers. The castle walls around us have crumbled... and she loves me.

"The... experiment..." Maddie groans, groggily struggling to stay awake. "It... was... my fault."

"There is no such thing as fault, my love," I whisper in her ear as I dry her cheeks, "only fate, now."

"... Fate..." Maddie whispers. "Could you... really have been mine... all along?"

Exhausted, she fades away into a sleep that weighs lovingly on me. I am overjoyed.


	4. Chapter 4

It seems, since besting the Sludge with my intentions, and I can finally say that my once broken heart has long-since been repaired.

Well, actually - it hasn't been that long, at all. It's been a few hours. I haven't slept a wink.

It is now morning, and the dawn of a new day, indeed.

"Vlad!" Maddie calls from a bed not far removed from my own, in a room preserved from the tussle (they were both equally expensive beds, but I am a gentleman as I've told you, and will not lay with her until I know it is right to do so).

Her voice rings out in a tired and restricted presence, weakly, dryly, no doubt hungover and still in shock.

\- "Vlad - you saved me..."

"Oh, pshaw-" I gleefully feign attempts at being modest. "It was nothing. All in a day's work for your typical superhuman billionaire." I strike a vain pose and smile, hoping she is entertained by my bravado.

When I see that her eyes are shut tightly and frown becomes somehow a painful wince, I kneel by her bedside and press a cold compress of jewel-encrusted ice against her forehead to soothe her cranium. I use my powers to keep it confidently chill. Compelled of its own will, my other hand slips over hers and cradles it gently in a hold.

"No -" Maddie corrects - "It was... something."

She groans a bit, and leans forward into my embrace, and into the shimmering cold light.

"We've always been something, Maddie."

The sheets and blankets move forward like recinding waves. Maddie sinks into a smile, somehow taking in the memory of what could have almost seemed like a dream.

"You're right," she replies, as she squeezes my hand. "Where's Danny?"

Oh - right. He's still alive. I tell her the room number somewhere in my long, labeled corridor, and hope that is answer enough for her. I understand her concern as a mother, but right now, I'd like to deal with one pain in the neck at a time.

"Back to us," I try to direct - "about us being something..."

"What kind of something are we, Vlad?" she softly groans, pulling me forward towards her.

My bottom lip quivers at just the thought of a kiss. The mere suggestion nearly melts the icepack, alone. My grip on her hand tightens - as hers does, in mine - and I lean forward, prepared for this moment with a very refreshing breath mint still a stain on my tongue. My hair is a suave gray nest atop the back of my shoulders. I watch Maddie's hair shimmer in a much more perfect radiance as it falls to the pillows on all sides.

"You can put the icepack down now," she declares, "and thank you."

I do as instructed, and touch the brisk, wet surface stain it leaves on her face with my now free hand.

"Today is a day for new beginnings, Maddie," I begin to her, "and you're welcome. It's a beautiful day outside this castle, and there is a meadow that I must show you."

"That... sounds lovely, actually." she says, in smile. "There aren't any vengeful ghosts in the meadow today, are there? I ... kind of feel like taking the day off, if that's alright with you."

"Quite understandable," I say, nodding in mid smirk. "Last night was certainly a revelation."

"That it was."

"But..." and I linger on the moment, hanging from her presence and the way that the light catches her beautiful face. "Anything is possible now, Maddie."

"Anything?"

We are inches apart now, and our lips are like bridges coming apart at the seems to merge into a crashing gush in the sea below.

"Anything, my darling."

I can feel her breath still sweet with wine combining in the air with mine like twisting barrels of smoke. I close my eyes, still half-convinced that we didn't actually survive last night - that, surely, this had to be too good to be true. Surely, this - the moment that I feel I've waited lifetimes for is almost too perfect. Since the day she ran away from me all those years ago... there could only be one thing to ever stand in the way of us. Surely, though, that time is -

\- "MADDIE!" -

 _ **Oh no.**_

"What?!" I hear my love stammer in confusion.

This can't be. This is impossible - it's -

"Jack?!"

"HOW **COULD** YOU?!"

The ominous voice of Jack Fenton is now twisted and hollow, and repeating in an endless, echoing funnel from beyond the grave, and beyond out sight. Somewhere in this very expensive room, with very expensive beds, Jack is definitely here... and vengeful.

So much for one pain at a time, I guess...

I back away, and glow furious in power. My hands warp energies from the unseen to beckon as I transform, rather unexpectedly, out of what I thought was the Plasmius' retirement.

"Jack?" Maddie calls again, believing herself delirious. "... Where ... are you?"

" **Dead**!" I shout - unfortunately willed to anger in the moment's impossible rise. "DEAD! DEAD, AND I DON'T CARE HOW MANY TIMES I WILL HAVE TO KILL YOU TO MAKE IT STAY THAT W-"

"VLAD!" Maddie scolds.

Damn it.

 _So... close..._

"Maddie!" the ghostly fencepost, an idiot both in life and death, laments. "That... GOOP ... that goop is evaporating into the air. The ghosts - Maddie - they're -"

"They're what?"

I dart my eyes around, searching astral planes for energies and any possible disturbances. Curiously, beyond my own anger at my mortal enemy clinging to life, I sense no such hostility. On the contrary, the world of my once proud legion seems almost asleep.

"If you go with Vlad-" Jack says "- All the ghosts will yield to you, and him... and Danny. I can't leave this world knowing that you would tamper with that kind of power!"

"Oh?" Maddie surprisingly scoffs at the specter's voice, grimacing. "What - you think I can't handle power, Jack?"

\- "Maddie, it's not that - it's just -"

"Jack," Maddie subdues, "What did you and I achieve with the power WE had? Did we better the world by harming the ghosts? Did your friend have a long, fulfilling life, or did he feel like HIS life was stolen by our tampering?"

"What about Danny?" Jack calls.

"Danny is smart enough to make his own decisions, Jack... as am I..."

"Maddie..."

"I'm sorry, Jack," she declares. "Vlad's expensive bed apparently has an advanced astral spectrometer on its headboard."

"It was three million extra-" I interject, "-but worth every cent."

"No doubt," Maddie confirms.

"What does this mean?" Jack asks.

The headboard projects an image of a reading similar to a film projector, and shows Maddie, more or less, what I see: sleeping paranormal energy, and remnants of the Sludge. Somehow she and I pick up on it at the very same time in different ways.

"You're keeping the goop alive, Jack," she says. "You have to let me go..."

"Let you go...?"

Part of me cannot even comprehend the words I am hearing, but - no doubt - neither can Jack. Somehow, even more miraculously, the readings show Jack's projected body reaching critical mass, and starting to dissipate in the air as he leans sympathetic towards her words.

"I will protect her, old friend," I say... now influenced by the waves of energy warping and binding all around us. I begin to shed the violence of my alter ego, and return to a normal state... somehow feeling all the more rejuvenated.

The room grows quiet now as I move in close to check on my beloved, and trust in her new dawning words. I caress her cheek slowly as she closes her eyes and tears of resilient acceptance stroll down her delicate face.

"You... are... incredible," I whisper to her. "I... I love you."

"I love you, too, Vlad," she whispers.

Now, finally, I hang on the moment of all moments, one more time. Our lips draw closer in magnetism unbridled.

Finally the kiss arrives as the readings disappear, and the ghosts shield around us, protecting watching eyes from what no mortal man could ever know again: the absolute and pure devotion of my Maddie.

But I am no mortal man.

Maddie's lips are soft and sweet, though slightly dry. My hands cup around her face as I begin embracing her inside the bed.

Though things are moving quite fast, like my powers, everything feels very manageable. The love story that I never thought could be ours finally begins and ends.

In a way, it's probably better that the boy didn't see his father in such a state. To know that the great Jack Fenton relinquished his facade to set his former lover free - to hear him yield to me, as the superior - to probably be teased in his high-school about his dad being a "cuck" - to

... Wait. Why are these bad things?

Maddie's body is warm and welcoming. Her arms and mine interlock, and I am compelled to say again the words that begin my retirement... again.

"I love you."


End file.
